People

Dr. Catherine Cahill completed her M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Pharmacology from Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. She is currently Full Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences and the Director of the Pain and Addiction Lab at the University of California Los Angeles. Cathy’s research lab consists of bright trainees and keen, enthusiastic undergraduate students. She is a member of the Shirley & Stefen Hatos Center for Neuropharmacology and the Jane & Terry Semel Institute of Neuroscience and Human Behavior. Her research is also part of a National Institutes of Health funded Center of Excellence on opioid research and drug addiction (CSORDA). Cathy is passionate about educating the next generation and advancing development of new therapies for treating pain and addiction.

Cherka is a lab manager in the P2 research lab at UCLA. She received her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg, France in 2006. She went on to complete a 10 year postdoctoral fellowship in Neuroscience and Pharmacology from the University of Minnesota. She has published seminal first author papers on neuro-steroids and opioids in high impact journals such as PNAS and Biological Psychiatry. Dr. Cahill was fortunate to recruit Cherka as a lab manager in 2019. Cherka has extensive experience and training in neuroanatomy, neurochemistry, behavioral analysis, and molecular biology. Her research focus is on negative affective states in chronic pain and engagement of serotonin circuits.

Courtney is the most recent member to join the P2 research lab. She received her PhD in Psychology as part of the Behavioral Neuroscience Program at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 2014. Courtney recently completed postdoctoral training from 2014-2019 under the supervision of Dr. Ilana Witten at Princeton University. Her most recent research was published in Neuron in 2019 where she demonstrated that cocaine motivation was associated with changes in an infralimbic-nucleus accumbens circuit. Courtney brings expertise in optogenetic manipulations, fast scanning cyclic voltammetry and various paradigms for assessing reward. Her current research will study the dynamics of neural microcircuits in opioid dependent states.

Lindsay is a postdoctoral fellow in the P2 research lab. She received her PhD in Neuroscience from West Virginia University in 2015. Lindsay completed two and a half years of postdoctoral training at the Icahn School of Medicine, Mount Sinai before joining our research group in 2018. Lindsay has expertise in both molecular and in vivo research leading our current research on self administration. Her previous research involved deorphanizing GPR83 and mechanisms of opioid tolerance. Lindsay currently splits her time between directing the rodent behavioral testing core for the UCLA Department of Psychology and our P2 research lab.

Human Biology and Society Major

(Class of 2022)

English Major

(Class of 2022)

Anthropology Major

(Class of 2021)

Physiological Sciences Major

(Class of 2021)

Psychology Major

(Class of 2021)

Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology Major

(Class of 2022)

Psychobiology Major 

(Class of 2021)

Neuroscience Major with Minors in Biomedical Research and Arabic and Islamic studies

(Class of 2022)

Neuroscience Major

(Class of 2022)

Zack Barta, Neuroscience Major, (Class of 2021)

Michael Chain, Neuroscience Major, (Class of 2021)

Karina Seth, (Class of 2023)

Hazem Nasef, Biology Major, 

Jacob Alderete, Neuroscience Major, 

Isabel Bishop,  Human Biology and Society Major 

Maggie Miller, Psychobiology Major, 

Leeza Shashkova, Neuroscience Major, 

Steven Liu, Psychobiology Major, 

Raj Shusharla, Neuroscience Major, 

Ahmad Daaboul, Anthropology Major, 

Hannah Kim, Neuroscience Major, 

Jason Miller, Physiological Sciences Major, 

Amy Bishop,  Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology Major, 

Lucie Bosler, Neuroscience Major